Bedroom Blog: New Perspective

He picked a fancy new Thai place near my apartment for dinner, and when I showed up to meet him, he was wearing khakis and a polo shirt.

"Look at you!" I exclaimed. "I didn't think I'd ever see you out of your shorts and sneakers. You look cute."

"I know," he said. "I looked at myself in the mirror before I headed out and thought, 'damn, you're a handsome man when you try'."

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I laughed in response.

"The thing is, I work at a job where I get my hands dirty," he continued. "And I've been single for a long time, and mostly I hang out with the crew after work. So I never have a reason to dress up. Well, I didn't before now, anyway."

We mostly talked about work over dinner -- shrimp pad Thai for him and spicy basil chicken for me, plus dumplings and a bottle of Riesling. I told him about Jack (minus the kitchen incident), and he threatened to bust his kneecaps. I told him I appreciated the offer but thought I should handle it on my own, somehow.

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He told me about how his/Sarah's show ratings have been disappointing, and that he had been looking for another gig in case it got cancelled. I thought again about losing Sarah to LA again, but he told me that she'd been thinking about transitioning into theater, which was news to me.

After dinner, he offered to walk me home. As soon as we headed in the direction, he took my hand.

"I want to explain why I was such a flake," he said. "My sister ran away from home…."

Then he told me the whole story. His father passed away three years ago, and in that time, his mother had gone from being a functioning alcoholic to being a non-functioning one. His 16-year-old sister couldn't deal anymore, and ran away. He had had to go to Colorado unexpectedly to deal with everything, and when he got back, his sister showed up, wanting to live with him. She's been with him since, and he's had to deal with 1,000 phone calls per day from his mother, who wants her to come home, and his other two sisters, who both think she'd be better suited with them.

"Wow," I said when he was finished. "That's a lot to deal with."

"It is," he admitted. "But I'm dealing. You got any crazy family stories?"

"I'm afraid my family stories pale in comparison," I said, realizing for the first time how much worse drama with your mother could be.

When we got to my stoop, he wrapped his arms around my waist.

"Do you have room in your life for a dude with a lot of family baggage?" he asked. "If you haven't noticed, I'm pretty adorable, which can distract you from the rest of it for awhile at least."

"I think so," I said. "But I think you should probably kiss me so I can make sure."

And he did. And I may have swooned a little bit. And, if I may be petty for a moment, the fact that NB and The Amazon walked out right as we were finishing up was pretty awesome.